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Avoid the Cheese

Making Your Video Production Less Cheesy

With the growth of computer processing power, and the falling prices of
hardware and software, the good news is that the ability to do video production is
available to the masses. The bad news is that the ability to do video production is
available to the masses. With such great video editing tools in our hands, why
are so many of the video presentations we see in our churches so...well...
cheesy?

Here are some of the most common mistakes that I see in ministry videos. Let’s
band together and vanquish the cheese from the realm of our videos.

1. Too Many Random Transitions Are Cheesy

Use restraint in choosing transitions. Most video editing programs come
with enough video transitions options to choke a horse, and a novice video
editor will feel the need to experiment with all of them in his video
production. This, however, does not make for a high quality video. If there
is anything that screams “cheesy” when watching a video, it is the random use of
weird and off-the-wall transitions between shots.

For 99% of video editing, the only transitions that you need are straight “cuts”
for faster moving, higher energy videos, or dissolves for slower moving, more
emotional videos.

2. Wrong Music Is Cheesy

Music is one of the most powerful elements of a video. It gives emotion to
the video and tells the audience how to feel about what they are seeing. In
ministry videos, I have noticed a tendency to pick overly-dramatic music.
Choose something that is appropriate for the emotion that you are trying to
create.

3. Poor Audio Is Cheesy

Good audio is always important to a video—especially in interview pieces.
The microphone that is built into your camera is almost never the right choice
for recording good audio. That leaves you with two basic choices: a separate
microphone that plugs into your camera, or a completely separate recording
device. We use the Zoom H2 Handy Recorder for most of our productions and it
works great, but you do have to sync the audio and video together in
editing.

4. Poor Lighting Is Cheesy

When you shoot an interview or other video, take time to set up lighting. If you can afford to get a nice light kit you should, but your
lighting does not have to be expensive studio lighting. Most of the time you
can use shop lights from a hardware store. If you do that,
you should diffuse the light by bouncing it off of a wall or a white poster
board. I have also tried covering them with parchment paper—but that ended in a
small fire.

You should also learn about three-point lighting. You can watch a video
about it here.

5. Shoulder-Mounted Shooting Is Cheesy

For the vast majority of video shooting,
you should use a tripod. You might also consider using a jib or a track and
dolly.

There are several more cheesy video habits, but these five are
the most common. What cheesy habits have you seen? Let me know in the comments.

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